So because they gave us this shit once, there is a chance they will do it again*

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Originally Posted by snackfeat

There is no way this would happen, unless they would be ready for WoD sucking monkey balls. Blizzard is terrible at testing stuff themselves. Just look at how Diablo 3 turned out after beta only had the first few levels and first part of the first act.

They could however test raids, then balance them behind the scenes for release.

Originally Posted by Aquamonkey

Just because Mannoroth and Archimonde are involved doesn't mean it's Legion. They could just be on vacation, demolishing Draenor to build their new summer home.

Originally Posted by Dundebuns

Did you know that salt has sodium and chlorine in it!!!! Sodium explodes when exposed to atmosphere and you clean your toilets with chlorine!!

Or it could be that Blizzard has stopped giving a crap. I know, unlikely, but gotta consider all possibilities. And if this one is indeed true, then WoD is gonna suck more than all the crappy stuff taken from Cata and MOP and combined. We'll see. Overall it kinda sucks that they are unable to live up to their own words. Wouldn't surprise me if we don't even get even half the updated models by release, whenever that may be.

26 months from Vanilla to BC
22 months from BC to Wrath
25 months from Wrath to Cata
21 months from Cata to MoP

It does not seem farfetched to suggest that WoD will come out in September. Why? Because more or less there is a team A and a team B in expansions. Team A notoriously takes longer (26 and 25 months) whereas team B tends to be quicker (22 months and 21 months). Assuming a slightly faster trend that both teams have been doing, 24 months is quite reasonable and WoD would probably come out in September 2014. Following this logic, Expansion #6 might come out in May 2016 and Expansion #7 might come out in April 2018.

That being said, while Wrath and MoP did in fact come out less than 2 years after the previous expansion, I generally get it in my head that an expansion is 2 years long. Until I have enough evidence to truly prove otherwise, I'm going to pretty much expect that.

What makes you say that?
Didn't the same team do vanilla, tbc, and most of wrath content before gc took over?

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Originally Posted by Slowpoke is a Gamer

ICC was, but the REAL final raid of Wrath (Ruby Sanctum) was out 4 months before 4.0 launched.

DS was out 8 months.

SoO will be out 8-11 months with a launch window of June-September.

Plain and simple, since the Activision merger, Blizz has a long documented history of having the space to put in a filler or 4th tier, but turn their nose up at the subject and then try to justify it with "everything costs a tier."

And people eat the excuses up.

RS may be the final raid of wrath, but it was not a new tier, and IIRC did not come with a new pvp tier.
Edit: It was also 1 boss, 1 boss isn't enough for 4 months.

Originally Posted by Aquamonkey

Just because Mannoroth and Archimonde are involved doesn't mean it's Legion. They could just be on vacation, demolishing Draenor to build their new summer home.

Originally Posted by Dundebuns

Did you know that salt has sodium and chlorine in it!!!! Sodium explodes when exposed to atmosphere and you clean your toilets with chlorine!!

But instead of owning up to it and saying "While we can't provide you with more frequent expansions, we can provide you with more frequent raids"

Oh yeah, because so many people have killed H Garrosh that they need to be whipping out more subpar raids in the meantime right? There's a reason WoW is the #1 game for raiding and it's not because they give you filler raids like you seem to want(hello RS). Quality over quantity. YMMV. They have already stated their goal to put out faster expansions was hindered by lack of talent hiring. They straight up told you there weren't good enough people to hire. But hey, if you want to pay your $15 to get access to raids made by people with no talent, be my guest. I'll keep using my $15 to play in content that Ion and his team designs.

Oh yeah, because so many people have killed H Garrosh that they need to be whipping out more subpar raids in the meantime right? There's a reason WoW is the #1 game for raiding and it's not because they give you filler raids like you seem to want(hello RS). Quality over quantity. YMMV. They have already stated their goal to put out faster expansions was hindered by lack of talent hiring. They straight up told you there weren't good enough people to hire. But hey, if you want to pay your $15 to get access to raids made by people with no talent, be my guest. I'll keep using my $15 to play in content that Ion and his team designs.

How many people consider H-Garrosh to be the end of the content?

I think more people consider seeing the final cinematic to be the end. Maybe even just beating Normal (which what, 60% have done now)? Heroic? Yeah, that's kinda a dying thing as far as being "the end."

"Oh, who does my hair? You might have heard of my stylist. It's called the Void!"
"No matter how much you plead I will not sprout tentacles or turn into a giant eyeball. Well, I might. But not because you asked!"

I think more people consider seeing the final cinematic to be the end. Maybe even just beating Normal (which what, 60% have done now)? Heroic? Yeah, that's kinda a dying thing as far as being "the end."

Which is exactly what some people are missing. WoW IS a casual's MMO. It's been like that since Cata, there's no debate here. Hardcore raiders are just making noise about how they are the ones that are doing it right when there's really no right and wrong, you pay your fee and you do whatever the fuck you feel like. The devs try to cater to everyone, to the majority of casuals who want to experience the endgame aspect of the story (which happens to be raiding) and to the minority of hardcore raiders who want to kill tougher dragons, or whatever the hell is on the plate at the moment. And they would succeed too, if everyone would just mind their goddamn business instead of bitching about what the other guy gets and how unfair it is to you...

Yes, you read correctly. It's been over 5 months already and not even a Beta for WoD in sight. Doesn't this concern people? At this rate, SoO will probably have been out 8-9 months at least before we see WoD, with no new substantial new content in-between. What happened to getting content out faster.

Why worry? A repeat of Cataclysm's Neverending Beta, is considered a null possibility. And they polished their development a lot during MoP. This beta will run very fast.

53% of guilds with SoO normal/heroic progression have downed N Garrosh. However, that's not 53% of players, since most guilds have no such progression.

"There is a pervasive myth that making content hard will induce players to rise to the occasion. We find the opposite. " -- Ghostcrawler
"Almost every time I have gotten to know a critic personally, they keep up with the criticism but lose the venom." -- Ghostcrawler
"Nothing will ever be attempted if all possible objections must first be overcome." -- Samuel Johnson

They have already stated their goal to put out faster expansions was hindered by lack of talent hiring. They straight up told you there weren't good enough people to hire. But hey, if you want to pay your $15 to get access to raids made by people with no talent, be my guest. I'll keep using my $15 to play in content that Ion and his team designs.

Somewhat. Blizz has internal problems when it comes to hiring. If you look at former employee reviews, they state the Blizz is god-awful at middle management which means that they only need people to fill in senior positions and that there are problems when it comes to managing resources. However, Blizz also has an "Old-boy problem" which means that anybody who isn't a close friend or family member will either not get the job or not have any mobility other than their initial position. So there is likely to be a lotta people that Blizz could hire, but won't because of their internal management problems.

Also, their standards for an employee are pretty damn high. Their requirements for a "Machinima Artist" includes "A minimum of 3 years’ professional experience working in a game engine" which is funny because it is their fanbase that makes most of the WoW Machinima out there anyways. If anything, Blizz should look into their fanbase as a resources pool like how Valve does for TF2 content.

They are releasing the content faster in the sense that they are trying to put more effort and content into it; releasing a better expansion. More content in almost same time = faster development

That's not how it works. Releasing content faster means just that, content coming out at a more rapid pace. It speaks nothing to the quantity of said content. If they wanted to release more content that's what they would have said.

Well...you have no verifiable proof about the 'old-boy' thing, but it's kinda a moot point since most of these people have never left the company and just work on other projects. It's not like people left WoW and droves and now they're coming back, because they're not. They are making their own MMOs...since pretty much every other MMO advertises 'former WoW lead dev So and So' (Carbine, Firefall, etc). Regarding the high standards, that's the exact reason why they are having problems finding more staff.

We can sit here in our computer chairs and judge them for not hiring every schmuck who walks in the door with a portfolio or experience, but the truth is that maintaining the high standards is part of the reason they are still tops. I trust after so long that they have a pretty good idea of what level of talent they need. It's part of the reason I find this thread so ridiculous.